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I read a post by RanchuDressing who recommended aragonite sand as crushed coral substitute for its better and larger life span when used as natural ph buffer. I'm curently using Alkaline Buffer by Seachem that does the job but when I run out if it would like to switch to somthing else as I'm not a big fan of pouring chemicals in my tanks. So I looked up aragonite sand and found out that it is indeed an excellent and long lasting buffer and natrates and ammonia remover due to de life bacteria it caries. However, in the information provided it was also stated that the bacteria "fall asleep" and don't do their job at low temperatures. The text didn't say what is meant by low temperatures but considering it's normal usage is in tropical/reef aquariums I recon the temparatures at which goldfish are normaly kept should fall into this category. With that info in mind I can't help but ask myself, is aragonite at all sutable for goldfish tanks? Do you guys use it? And one more thing. Have any of you used it in a HOB filter?

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An aragonite substrate should do a good job of buffering for you. Any live nitrifying bacteria in the sand have grown in very different conditions from what you have in your tank and will die.

Use sand for a substrate. Put filter media in your HOB. I suppose if you filled the HOB with sand, you could get one of those "sand waterfalls." However the sand that becomes suspended in the water will be picked up by the filter and will destroy the impeller.

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An aragonite substrate should do a good job of buffering for you. Any live nitrifying bacteria in the sand have grown in very different conditions from what you have in your tank and will die.

Use sand for a substrate. Put filter media in your HOB. I suppose if you filled the HOB with sand, you could get one of those "sand waterfalls." However the sand that becomes suspended in the water will be picked up by the filter and will destroy the impeller.

All my tanks are bare bottom because this way it's easier for me to keep them clean and mantain good quality water. I started using JBL Ammoex in my HOB filter last week. It's practically like sand. It came in a cloth-like bag that I cut in four and sawn back in four smaller bags filled with Ammoex. The fabric doesn't let the sand out (I checked during WC. No loose sand in tank) so I believe it would be just as good to use for argonite.

Sharon, I didn't quite understand what you meant when you wrote that nitrifying bacteria coming from different conditions would die. If It would die what's the point of using it even as substrate?